The aircraft wing for commercial airplanes is designed such that the lift/drag (L/D) ratio is optimized for such conditions as cruising at particular speeds and altitudes. Operating at slightly different conditions from the optimum can mean increased fuel consumption. For military aircraft, optimizing L/D for (short) maneuvers could be more important than steady state L/D characteristics. U.S. Pat. No. 4,899,284 issued in 1990 to Lewis et al., entitled “Wing Lift/Drag Optimization System”, has provided for varying the wing camber such that L/D is optimized in flight but has focused on enhancement of the airplane L/D parameter for maneuvers. Other systems for wing camber control include U.S. Pat. No. 6,161,801 issued to Kelm et al., and U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,875,998 and 5,740,991 issued to Gleine et al.
Aircraft and wing performance are greatly affected by the airfoil (cross section) of the wing, one property of which is the mean camber line. Conventional flap extension for landing produces vast changes in an airfoil's mean camber line and therefore in its lift and drag characteristics. Small changes to an airfoil's camber have the same effect, just on a smaller scale. Additionally, span-wise variation of camber along the span of the wing allows induced and wave drag reduction. This is achieved by differential deflection of inboard and outboard flaps by changing wing span-wise loading. In the prior art, adjustment of an airplane wing's Leading Edge (LE) and Trailing Edge (TE) configuration is most usually limited for non-cruising flight segments. For example, flaps are historically used for take off and landing only, and remain stored in a single configuration for the rest of the flight. In general, prior systems have provided for varying the wing camber for optimization with respect to different stages or phases of flight.